


Unexpected

by chiefmomboss



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 15:04:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4064392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiefmomboss/pseuds/chiefmomboss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lin agrees to a security sweep at the Republic City Art Museum before a big show of famous sculptor, Tai Jun. However, when the sweep doesn’t go as planned, Lin finds herself knee-deep in unfamiliar territory: dating.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unexpected

**Author's Note:**

> OC Tai Jun created by amiraelizabeth on tumblr and used with permission

Lin walked through the half-lit halls of the art museum. The click of her heels echoed off the stone walls and statues. She pouted the entire time. “Beifong approved” security sweep. _You know who steals art?_ she wanted to say to the museum curator. _No one. No one steals art._ Thirty-three years she’d been a police officer—and no one ever tried to break into the public art museum.

She agreed to the sweep to put the stressed little woman's mind at easy. This guy was so famous. The curator needed the opening party to go off without a hitch.

Also, half an hour in silence sounded like a treat after a long day of cleaning up after Equalist messes.

She folded her arms and turned on her heel into the rotunda. Three large marble statues stood in a line in the middle, and smaller ones filled the outskirts of the round room. Didn't the curator mention this guy was a nonbender?

She wandered around the area, slightly uneased by the perfect human replicas surrounding her. They seemed to move in a sequence—the same subject in different poses. A girl, in a dress, playing. But she grew. By the door where she entered, the littlest one stood on the left side and the oldest—maybe twenty-five—on the right.

“You like them?”

Lin jumped and quickly spun to the voice. A tall man slid tools into a shoulder bag. He stood next to one of the large statues in the center. He smiled at her.

Thirty-three years and her first art robber wanted to pilfer a marble statue.

“You don’t honestly think you can steal ones of these?” Lin said. She didn’t want to fight this guy. Something would get broken.

The man laughed. “You really think someone would steal a marble statue?”

Lin rolled her eyes. A banner hung from the ceiling with the artist’s face on it. Bald, small dark beard, late fifties. Same big smile as the guy ten feet from her. She sighed. “You’re the ‘so-famous’ artist.”

“I prefer Tai Jun, but I suppose you could call me that.”

She set her hands on her hips. “Alright, what are you doing breaking into your own show?” she asked.

Tai Jun tapped the leg of the statue next to him. “Last minute touches. You know, you’re not a very good guard if you didn’t catch me crawl in through the window.”

“I’m not a guard,” Lin insisted. “I’m the police chief.”

He grinned. “When the curator told me I’d have ‘Beifong approved’ security, I didn’t think she meant the Actual Beifong.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“I don’t know why she was so worried. It’s not like anyone could steal one of these,” he teased.

Lin rolled her eyes again.

He laughed. “You never answered my question.”

“What question?”

“My sculptures. Do you like them?”

Lin glanced around the room. The three in the middle were two men with a woman in between, a tribal dance frozen in white marble.

She nodded. “They’re good.”

“It’s pretty hard to impress an earthbender with marble,” he said. “I promise it’s a real skill for us regular people.”

“You can’t be a nonbender,” she said. “These would take—years.”

He shrugged. “Some do.”

She huffed a breath and admitted, “They're impressive.”

“You gonna be at the party tonight?” he asked.

“I’m part of your ‘Beifong approved’ security team,” she said.

“You should consider being a guest sometime.” He smiled. “I have a feeling you look rather lovely in a dress.”

She gave a disapproving pout. “Alright, you’re the artist and you can touch the art, but you can’t break into the museum.”

“You wouldn’t arrest me on opening night,” he said.

“I suppose not. Just no more ‘last minute touches,’” she said.

“Don’t worry, I’m all done,” he said, but a mischievous grin filled his face.

“What?”

“You’re very—you’d make a nice sculpture.”

Lin folded her arms over her chest.

“I mean that in the least weird way possible,” he said with a little laugh. “I promise. I just work with the human form for a living and—that doesn’t help does it?”

“No.”

He sighed. Glanced at a watch strapped to his wrist with a worn out leather band. “Thank you, for your continued loyal service to this city. But the doors open in thirty and I’m not dressed.”

Lin bit her lip, trying not to smile. Half an hour to his show and he was still in ratty pants, a shirt covered in paint stains, and an apron that she assumed used to be white but was now tinged gray by dried clay streaks.

“I won’t mention this to the curator,” Lin said.

“I’m serious, Chief, you should take a night off and come be a spectator instead of security,” he said. “Art’s more fun when you’re not worried someone will steal it.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Lin turned back down the main hall, and Tai Jun slipped out through the side door in the rotunda.

Opening night went off without a hitch, as promised by the Beifong approved security team—Lin, two sergeants, and seven new officers. Lin watched Tai Jun, wearing a nice dark brown suit, impress reporters with basic art terminology and explain his vision in detail to critics. He posed with statues for pictures Lin found in the paper the next morning.

A schedule was posted with the article about Tai Jun’s artistic brilliance and “best showcase yet.” The dates included “Meet the Artist” nights where Tai Jun would wander around the museum and talk to people about art. He had a pottery workshop once a month. His own gallery where he sold smaller pieces. He took commissions, according to the article.

Lin pouted and folded the paper back up. She had one of the nights off, and no plans.

* * *

 

“I was right,” Lin heard. She turned, fumbling to fold her arms with a clutch purse in her hand. Tai Jun stood behind her, wearing the same brown suit he’d worn opening night a week ago.

“You look lovely,” he said. “I’m glad you came.”

Lin couldn’t figure out why she’d come other than she had the night off. And nothing better to do. It was different from ordering the good takeout and drinking whiskey. Not that she hadn’t eaten the takeout already. And whiskey was waiting for her when she got home.

“I had the night off,” she said.

“Thank you for spending your precious free time at my showcase,” he said. “Do you have any questions?”

“Who’s the little girl?”

“Ming,” he said. “My daughter. She’s twenty-seven now. I don’t think people realize this series took twenty years to make.”

Lin glanced around the room, watching the sequence of frozen movements. The little girl got taller, filled out. In one she wore a wedding dress. In the next, she was pregnant. The next, she held a laughing baby over her head. How had Lin missed all this last week? The last one showed Ming smiling, in a long dress, hands behind her back.

“Your wife must love these,” Lin said. The words tasted bitter.

He shrugged. “We’re divorced, actually. I haven’t seen her in—ten years.”

Lin tried to nod politely and hide her sudden relief with this information.

“Ming doesn’t know I put all these in the exhibit. She’s out of town with her husband’s parents before she has the second baby,” Tai Jun explained while Lin looked around the room. “But I’m rambling.”

Lin nodded. “This is—these are really impressive.”

“What about you, Chief?”

Her head tilted slightly to one side.

“Your family.”

She shrugged. “I’m Toph’s kid—it’s not exactly a mushy story.”

Tai Jun smiled. “Let me show you around the exhibit.”

She agreed.

* * *

 

“You don’t seem like an artsy person, no offense,” he said as she looked up at a metal mobile hanging in another room. “What are you doing here, for real.”

She shrugged. “I’ve never made time to be artsy so I don’t know.”

“Why now?”

She felt her cheeks get hot.

He laughed. “I think you’re an amazing police officer, you know.”

“Why?”

He set a hand on her shoulder. “You leave your office. You’re the chief of police and you still take time to walk around an empty museum you know someone won’t break into.”

“What made you think to make something like this—on this scale?” she asked. The pieces of the mobile were various steel cutouts of faceless, genderless bodies dancing.

“My granddaughter,” he said. “I made a clay one for her crib when she was born. She watched it so intently. So I made a big one—it had to be metal, though, because clay figures that big would be too heavy to hang.”

Lin smiled.

“So why’d you come tonight?” he asked again.

“You suggested art might be fun if I wasn’t guarding it,” she said.

“And the verdict?”

“I’m a chief not a judge,” she said. “But you’re right.”

“You know what else around this city is fun?” Tai Jun asked. “Dinner at Kuang’s.”

She felt her cheeks get warm again. “I don’t know—I mean, this was nice but I don’t get a lot of nights off. Especially with all this—there’s still rouge Equalists and—the triads are acting up again.”

He slipped a business card into her hand. “Don’t worry about it. If you want, call me when you’re free.”

Lin put the card in her clutch. “Thanks.”

“No, thank you for coming.”

* * *

 

“What’s gotten into you?” Saikhan asked at lunch one afternoon. “You’re—in an eerily good mood.”

Lin stuffed a bite of pig-chicken into her mouth.

“And then you snap really fast. It’s weird.” He picked a few bean sprouts from his plate and set them on the edge of hers. “Did you meet someone or something?” he teased.

She shrugged as she chewed.

“Lin Beifong.”

She swallowed hard. “What?”

“What’s his name?”

Lin rolled her eyes. “Stop it—I can’t date anyone.”

“Not with that attitude,” he said.

“It’s not up for discussion.”

“Beifong. When was the last time you went on just a date?” Saikhan asked.

“No, I ruin people. I can’t date,” she insisted.

“What relationships were you in because that’s not what happened.” Saikhan swirled a few noodles around his chopsticks. “Tenzin cheated. And Tao?” He pointed his chopsticks at her. “Tao was just a soul-sucking asshole.”

Lin pouted.

“You don’t ruin people.”

“I’m chief now though—I’m too busy. Plus Korra and her—shenanigans. And the triads—anyone close to me would always be in danger. And he has a daughter—grandkids. I can’t do that to them.”

“That’s not true,” he argued. “Just tell me this guy’s name.”

She huffed.

“It doesn’t have to be serious. Just have fun—come on, what’s his name.”

“Tai Jun.”

Saikhan smiled. “The sculptor?”

She nodded.

“Please call him.”

She sighed. “Why?”

“Because you’re grouchy and you need to get laid,” he said.

She glared.

“See, just like that. Grouchy.” He smiled as he twirled another bite of noodles onto his chopsticks. “You need a night off, a free meal, and some good sex.”

“Stop it,” she said. Her face felt on fire. But she didn’t dare make a scene in the station cafeteria over her sex life.

“And I imagine that the man who studies the human form for a living is probably pretty good at sex,” Saikhan added. “Knowing where all the buttons are and such.”

“I will call him if you can it right now,” Lin argued through a tight jaw.

He grinned. “You know I only pester you because I care, right?”

“You need to care a little less,” she snapped.

* * *

 

Lin stared at the business card in her hand. She had been for fifteen minutes. She had Tai Jun’s gallery number memorized. The gallery closed in ten minutes. Saikhan had continued his harassment all afternoon between interrogations of suspected Equalists and a visit to the rebuild of the pro-bending arena. He convinced her to go on one date. That she was not putting Tai Jun and his family in danger because triads had never targeted the police so directly. That one date would not kill her. That he could keep the station standing for a weekend.

She picked up her office phone and spun the rotary.

“Tai Jun speaking,” he said into the phone. No hello, no cheesy business greeting.

“Hi—this is Chief—Lin Beifong,” she said, crumpling the business card up in her hand as the words fumbled out.

“Chief Lin Beifong,” he repeated. “Glad you called. What can I do for you?”

She took a slow inhale. “I was thinking—that dinner does sound like fun, if you still wanted—”

“Yes.”

She smiled. “This weekend?”

“I’ll pick you up at eight.”

“Sounds good,” she breathed.

“Hey, I thought of a not creepy way to say what I wanted to the other night,” he said.

“Okay, what is it?”

“You’re really beautiful,” he said. “And I think it’s really amazing how strong you are.”

The feeling of warm cheeks was starting to grow on her. “Thank you,” she said. “That was much less creepy.”

* * *

 

Lin stared at her reflection, looked herself up and down. The green dress didn’t fit exactly as it had the last time she wore it—but that was ten years ago. It still buttoned without issue. Just a little tighter in her hips, or maybe she was remembering wrong.

But the dark green satin wasn’t faded or wrinkled from years of hanging in her closet. She wrapped a strand of her grandmother’s pearls around her neck. She bent a piece of meteorite into a bracelet with twists and waves. The concentration on the piece of metal made her less nervous.

The second she heard him knock on the door, it all came back.

She grabbed her clutch purse and walked up to the door, took a long breath, and opened it.

Tai Jun stood with his hands behind his back, a smile, and the same brown suit.

“Wow,” he said. “Ready for dinner?”

“Yeah,” she said.

He offered his arm, and Lin looped hers with it. Under his suit were strong arms, she discovered.

Tai Jun drove an old model Satomobile, and she held onto his arm while she climbed up into it. He helped her down when they got to Kuang’s. Lin felt off in her dress and shoes with the smallest of heels, so she didn’t mind.

The maitre’d recognized Tai Jun and gave them a nice booth, no wait. No bribing. They ordered a bottle of wine.

“So, Chief Lin Beifong,” he said with a little smile.

“Please don’t—just Lin is fine,” she said. No one called her Lin—just Tenzin, now, mostly and those meetings were purposely rare. Saikhan had permission but seldom used it. The sentence felt weird coming off her lips.

“Lin,” he said, the smile getting a little wider. “I haven’t been on a date in seventeen years.”

She smiled. “That doesn’t excuse the fact you only own one suit.”

He laughed. “It’s not my only suit—just my lucky one.”

“What makes it lucky?”

“A lot of things,” he said. “To be honest, I didn’t think you owned more than one dress.”

“I have several, I just don’t have places to wear them,” she admitted.

“Maybe if you weren’t always running security at parties,” he said. “You could come as a guest.”

Lin bit her lip.

“Why do you always run security?”

“If something goes wrong, it’s my fault whether I’m there or not,” she said. “I’d rather have something actually be my fault if it’s going to go wrong.”

“That sounds like an oldest sibling thing,” he said.

Lin faked a smile. To anyone else, that’d be cute and witty. “You have siblings?” she asked.

“Two little sisters.”

She smiled for real now.

“What about you?”

Lin set her hand around the base of the wine glass. “Just a half-sister—we’re not close though. So how’d you get into sculpting?”

He shrugged. “It’s a long story.”

Lin took a sip of wine. “I’ve got time.”

He explained how his family lived in old money and minor nobility, his father worked for some government office, and he’d meant to follow in his footsteps. “I was good at it, too,” he said. “And then Ming got really sick—my youngest sister. I went home to help take care of her, but it was all in vain, I suppose. I couldn’t do numbers after that. I left home, started working for this sculptor.”

Lin didn’t care they spent their meal talking about him. His story was fascinating—standing up to his family and everyone else who told him sculpting was pointless for a nonbender. His first marble sculpture was his sister. “Forty years later my parents still think I’m crazy,” he finished as he picked up the check. “I’m sorry, I’m rambling.”

Lin laughed. “I’m not bored.”

“What about you?” he asked. “You knew Avatar Aang, right? That must’ve been interesting.”

She shrugged. “It was, I suppose. He always had a lot of energy. A smile. Not someone you want to make mad, though.”

“Really?”

“Ten thousand years of bending isn’t something you want to awaken in a person,” she said.

He laughed. Lin liked that she could make him laugh. “How does someone do that to a peaceful monk?”

“I don’t really remember. I think something to do with his eldest son joining the armed forces behind his parents’ back,” Lin explained.

“I want to show you something,” he said. He slipped bills into the leather check fold.

They left the restaurant, and Tai Jun led her down the street.

“Where are we going?” Lin asked, trying to keep up in her heels. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d worn them.

“My favorite place in the city.” He grabbed her hand as they walked, and she fought the urge to pull away. His hand was calloused and rough, like hers. Her palm felt sweaty, but he didn’t notice or didn’t care.

They walked about four blocks from Kuang’s to a small park with a marble statue in the center.

“You’re just showing off,” she teased.

“No, listen. I used to live in an apartment right over there—” he pointed across the street to a building that had been condemned. “But I didn’t have room to work in it, or money for a studio. So I used to come sit in the park and make little clay sculptures of the people who walked by as practice. This was where I started. One afternoon some fancy rich guy asked if I did bigger sculptures, and commissioned me to make this.”

The statue in front of them was a little girl with two braids, mid twirl, her skirt flared out.

“He was buying the rights to the park to name it after his daughter for her birthday. He wanted a statue of her to go with it.”

“So why is this your favorite place?”

“I used to sit here for entire days and focus on clay models, and I wouldn’t hear a single city noise. Just kids playing. Picnics. This was my escape from the craziness,” he explained.

Lin smiled and squeezed his hand. “Why are you showing me this?”

“I want you to trust me, because I want to get to know you. You’re funny and sweet and not who I thought you would be,” he said. “I admire and respect Chief Beifong, but Lin under the armor sounds like a pretty great person.”

Her cheeks felt red hot again. She didn’t know what to say.

“I’m sorry, that was a lot—”

“No,” she said. “Thank you. This is—really nice. You’re really nice. But I can’t do this to you.”

“Do what?”

She slid her hand out of his. “You have this nice, wonderful family, and I can’t hurt it.”

“Lin, that doesn’t make any sense—”

“I’m a police officer and my job is dangerous. I get hurt on such a regular basis it’s like I can predict my next hospital visit—”

“Lin.”

“I have enemies. I fight triads for a living, and if they knew I had people I cared about—they wouldn’t hesitate to hurt them. I see it all the time between the triads—who’s to say they wouldn’t hurt me, too? I make their lives hell. Today—I was at the murder scene of this high-ranking triad’s son—he was fifteen. All for revenge. Why would they stop at me?”

“Lin,” he said, taking both her hands and stepping in front of her. “Honey—what are you worried about?”

She fell silent and stared up at him. No one called her honey. Why was he?

“This isn’t about triads,” he said.

“I just—I really like you,” she admitted. “And that never ends well for me.”

He took a long breath and squeezed her hands. “Okay. This is only our first date, Lin.”

She bit her lip. “I haven’t been on any kind of date in a long time,” she said.

“Hey, me neither, remember?”

She looked to their hands. She liked his calloused palms. His smile. His stories and his sculptures. How he looked at her. Why was she scared?

“Lin, if you’re not ready or uncomfortable, it’s okay,” he said. “I’ll always be honest with you though.”

She ran her thumbs over his. “Okay. Can we go to my favorite place in the city?”

“Of course.”

They walked back to the car, and Lin directed Tai Jun to the police station.

“I’m—both surprised and not,” he teased.

She rolled her eyes. “Come on.”

She took Tai Jun around the building and unlocked a door that opened into a back staircase, where they wouldn’t run into anyone. She led him up steps until there weren’t anymore, and she bent the door at the top unlocked.

“Here,” she said as she pushed the metal door open.

They walked out onto the roof. Lin watched his face as he surveyed the view. He smiled that face-filling grin.

“Why?” he asked.

Lin leaned on the ledge. “It’s quiet. And even with all the skyscrapers, I can still see for miles—it’s big and open and I can breathe. I found it one day after a bad shift—I was a detective and I’d been investigating this awful murder and everything was a dead end. So I walked up the stairs until they ended, so I could solve one dead end.”

He nodded. He glanced around and finally decided to focus on her. “Thank you.”

She smiled a little bit.

He came to stand next to her and look out onto the streets.

Lin leaned against him and looped her arm under his. She breathed in the warm, earthy smell of clay. Why was this right? Why did it feel perfect? She felt appreciated, cared about. Safe.

“Are you having a good time?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Would you want to do this again?”

She nodded, her cheek brushing against his suit.

“Me, too.”

They were quiet and still for a few moments before Lin let go of him and Tai Jun checked his watch. Almost midnight.

They went back down the stairs and slipped out to his car without notice. He walked her up to her apartment.

“What changed your mind?” he asked.

Lin squeezed his hands. “You’re just nice,” she said.

He smiled and leaned down. “Is this okay?”

She nodded.

He kissed her once, softly, and she pressed back for a moment.

They pulled away smiling. Whispered good nights. Tai Jun squeezed her hand one last time before he wandered down the hall, and Lin slipped into her apartment. She leaned on her door.

Tai Jun was so nice and genuine. He looked at her like she was made of gold. He wanted to know her for knowing's sake. He respected her. He seemed to understand she came with baggage and damage but he had his, too. She smiled to herself in the dark.

* * *

 

Saikhan had managed to keep the building standing, but her desk was a war zone. She admitted to enjoying herself when he asked about her date while they cleaned it up.

“What happened to just having fun?” Saikhan asked as they sorted through the mound of paperwork on her desk.

She shrugged.

“You really like this guy, don’t you?”

“So?” She picked up a file. “What happened this weekend?”

“I don’t know—your file cabinet just exploded it was weird.”

Lin rolled her eyes. “I know there’s a lot of new files from finding all the people associated with Amon, but—this is sad.”

“You were right when you said you didn’t have time for a relationship,” he said.

“It was one date.”

“But it went so well there’s a second,” he teased.

Lin’s face felt hot, and she pouted.

“I’m happy for you,” he said. “He sounds like a good guy. Plus it’s hard to do worse than Tao—”

“We’re not talking about that.”

He smiled a little bit. “Sorry. He sounds very nice—I hope you two work out.”

Lin stared at the unattended to search warrant on her desk. “You can’t take four seconds to sign this?”

Saikhan picked it up. Grabbed a pen. Signed it. “Here.”

* * *

 

Lin sat on her couch and stared at the clock on her wall. She folded her arms over her chest and pouted.

Late.

Twenty minutes late.

She kicked her shoes off.

He at least seemed like the type to call and cancel.

At thirty minutes late, she threw her purse down at the coffee table.

She’d scared him off—she shouldn’t have brought up triads.

At an hour, she poured a glass of whiskey and sucked it down.

At two hours—ten o’clock—she took her dress off.

Eleven, another glass of whiskey. Eleven-thirty, she crawled into bed.

Her phone rang at one-forty-five.

“What?” she snapped into the mouthpiece.

“Lin—I’m so sorry.”

“Little late for that.”

“I know you’re mad—I should’ve called. But Ming went into labor and I lost track of time,” he explained. “Please let me make it up to you.”

Lin traced a crack in the wood on her desk. “Boy or girl?”

“What?”

“Ming’s baby,” she breathed. “Boy or girl?”

“Boy,” he said. “Aren’t you mad?”

“Yes but—it’s late and not worth it.”

“It is, I just—I’m really sorry.”

Lin half-smiled. “Don’t worry about it.” He still remembered to call her—that meant something.

“Let me make it up to you—next weekend.”

“Sure,” she breathed.

“Oh—and I was wearing my lucky suit,” he said.

“Good night,” she said.

“Good night.”

Lin set the phone down and wandered back to bed.

* * *

 

Tai Jun took Lin to an opera, something she wasn’t interested in but was willing to try.

“This is awful,” he breathed when the curtain came down for intermission.

She smiled. “You don’t like these?”

“No—I thought you might.”

“Not at all,” she said.

“What about drinks, do you like those?”

She laughed. “Yeah.”

“Let’s get those instead,” he said.

They got up and walked out of the theater, and headed to the nearest bar. “I just like seeing you dressed up,” he admitted once they sat down. “You do it so well.”

“Maybe I do it just average,” she said, stirring her gin and tonic with the straw. “It’s just surprising because I don’t do it often.”

He laughed. “No, you do it well,” he said. “When did you have time to get good at it?”

She took a sip of her drink. “I spent a summer or two with my grandparents. Very—high society. Old money. Tried to fix their mannerless grandchildren.”

“You were born with class,” he said. “I will believe nothing else.”

She laughed. “What happened to your lucky suit?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t want to waste all the luck right away.”

Tonight, he wore an identical suit to the brown one—it was just a dark green.

When they were finished with their drinks, as they walked to his car, he said, “Come see my studio. I want to show you what I’m working on.”

Lin smiled. She meant that much to him. “Yeah, okay.”

Tai Jun directed the car towards his studio and away from her apartment. His studio was in the lower east side, and he parked on the empty street.

He led her around the to the back of the building and unlocked the door. He flicked the lights on, revealing a multitude of half-finished statues and counters weighed down with tools. One corner had a pottery wheel, another filled with untouched hunks of marble.

“So what are you working on?” she asked.

“That,” he said, pointing to a statue. “And that. And that over there.”

“These take forever and you work on three at once?”

He shrugged. “Sometimes I don’t want to work on one so I work on another. But I wanted to show you this.” He took her hand and they walked across the large room—Lin's heels echoing—and stopped in front of an untouched hunk of marble about six feet tall.

“What’s this?”

He shrugged. “I was kind of thinking it could be you.”

Lin bit her lip. “Tai—I don’t know.”

“Nothing too complicated, I promise. I just—I don’t order marble to make angels. I order marble and ask what it wants to be.” He smiled. “That makes no sense. Here, just—you’re an earthbender. Touch it.”

Lin held her hand up and pressed her palm to the cold, white stone. She took a slow breath and focused on the rock. “What am I supposed to feel?”

“The planes where it’ll break easiest.”

Lin made a fist and tapped the stone. She could feel weak planes. “How do you find these?”

He picked up a hammer and small chisel. Pressed his cheek and ear to the surface, and gently tapped on the chisel with the hammer. “Lots of practice.” He smiled. “I’m positive this is you.”

Tai Jun took her hand and posed her at attention. “Like this.”

She smiled.

He just looked at her and smiled back. “Damn, you’re pretty.”

“You’re not so bad yourself,” she said.

He set a hand on her cheek, and Lin set hers over his. She took his other hand as he brought it up, and their fingers twisted together. She stretched up a little bit and let her eyes drift shut.

Her lips pressed against his in an innocent kiss, but Lin felt her cheeks burn and she fought the smile tugging at her face to hold the moment.

He smelled like clay and tasted like whiskey. His calloused fingerprints brushed her cheek. She set her hands on the back of his neck.

Tai Jun pulled away and kissed her forehead, her cheek, her nose. She smiled and brought him back to her. His hands slipped around her waist and pulled her against him.

* * *

 

Lin agreed to meet Tai Jun on her lunch hour one afternoon, and she showed up to the little café to find him with a stack of photographs.

“Hey,” she said as she sat down. “What are those?”

He held up the top one with a big, proud grin. “My grandson,” he said. The photo was a little baby sleeping, wrapped up in blankets, and wearing a knit hat. “Gan.”

Lin smiled. “He’s very sweet.”

Tai Jun proceeded to go through the entire stack—about a dozen photos—all of them of his daughter and her family. Ming was very plain but very pretty, with her dad’s big smile. Her daughter was three and had long dark hair like her mom. There was one of all four: husband, Ming, daughter, and Gan in Ming’s arms.

“I took that one,” he said. “Ming’s husband likes to play with the camera but she demanded one of all of them.”

Demanded. Lin liked the sound of this girl. Her own mom had been—understandably so—not big on photographs.

“How is work?” Tai Jun asked as he tucked the photos back into an envelope and slipped them into his shoulder bag.

She shrugged. “Work.”

“Anything interesting at all?”

Lin stared at her hands folded on the table. “No—all the drunks are usually hungover when I get there. The night shift is when interesting stuff happens.”

“You have a funny drunk story?”

She smirked. “I have a dozen.”

Tai Jun listened while they ate lunch to half of Lin’s awkward drunk stories. He laughed at all of them.

“What about you?” he asked as he paid the bill. “Were you ever the awkward drunk?”

Lin’s face turned red. She could feel it. There were several nights of drunk sobbing on Saikhan’s couch over Tenzin. Once in public, but Saikhan got her home really fast after the tears started. She shrugged. “Not really.”

“Your face says otherwise.” He smiled. “This one time when I was like—twenty-two, I tried to fight this guy who was at least twice my size, probably more because I used to be pretty scrawny. Broke my nose within seconds. I don’t know if the memory gap is from blacking out or how much I’d drank.”

She smiled. “Broken noses are awful.”

“You’ve had one?”

She nodded. “My mom was pissed. She made me go see Katara because it wouldn’t quit bleeding.”

Tai Jun walked her back to the police station. He leaned down and pecked her lips quick before squeezing her hand and telling her he’d see her later.

Lin stood for a moment and watched him walk away. She didn’t want to walk back into the busy station just yet.

* * *

 

Lin set her arm over Tai Jun’s side. She pressed her forehead to his back. She felt so—good.

She’d been wary when he offered for her to stay at his house that night, but now she didn’t know why.

His hand found hers against his chest, and he laced their fingers together. She smiled.

His body was warm, but not unbearably so. She tried not to press her cold toes against his legs, but she wanted to be as close to him as possible. She needed to feel how real this was.

Lin pressed a kiss between his shoulders.

She could feel his heartbeat and the rise and fall of his chest as he slept. She focused on these until she fell back asleep.

* * *

 

Lin and Saikhan stood outside the council’s meeting room, agreeing to stand guard for the election candidates as they discussed with the remaining council members. Neither was worried, with half of the people in the room skilled benders—it was just the closest thing to a mental break they would get all day.

“So how’s your boyfriend?” Saikhan asked.

“He’s not my boyfriend—”

“Do you have clothes at his place?”

Lin shot him a look.

“He’s your boyfriend.”

She sighed. “Fine. He’s fine.”

“Good.”

“You know we talk an awful lot about my love life.”

“You’re more than welcome to ask me about my boyfriend,” he teased.

“Alright—how’s your boyfriend?”

He shrugged. “Jian’s visiting his sister in the southern provinces right now.”

Lin nodded. “Good for him. Did he ever finish the deck?”

“No—lazy bastard.”

She smiled. “Maybe when he gets home.”

“Doubt it—he never finishes anything he starts.”

She sighed. “How long have you two been together?”

“Six—no, seven years,” he said.

“How? He drives you insane sometimes.”

Saikhan shrugged. “Yeah but I still love him. Sometimes I could wring his neck but I wouldn’t because I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

Lin smiled.

“That’s a good look for you.”

“What?”

“Love.”

“Stop it.”

Tenzin pushed open the door and led the candidates and former councilmen out. Lin looked to Saikhan—they had the same expression: break time over.

* * *

 

Lin rested her head on Tai Jun’s chest as they box-stepped around his living room to the music floating from his record player.

“Can I introduce you as my girlfriend?” he asked, squeezing her hand a little tighter.

She nodded. “To who?”

“My daughter. Her husband. Critics at shows. I don’t know.”

Lin bit her lip. “I don’t know if I’m comfortable with this—us—being public. You know? Like your family and people close to us—but not just anyone. Especially gossip press.”

“Been there done that?”

This was the first he’d mentioned of Lin dating Tenzin.

“Yeah. I’m sure if I got caught drunk in public again they’d find a way to tie it back to him,” she breathed.

“Is that your embarrassing drunk story?” he asked.

“The worst part was I was also on painkillers because I dislocated my shoulder the week before.”

“That sounds terrible, honey.” He kissed the top of her head. “Just our friends and family. No problem.”

“Thanks.”

They stopped their feet and Tai Jun took her face in his hands. He kissed her so hard she started to laugh.

 

 


End file.
